On Saturday morning they sent three hundred shells into Cuinchy, in revenge for their trench blown up (see to-day's Communiqué from Sir J.F.).
Friday, April 9th, 10.30 p.m.—An empty house was found for us on the same square, left exactly as it was when the owners left when the place was shelled. It was filthy from top to toe, but we have found a girl called Gabrielle to be our servant, and she has made a good start in the cleaning to-day. There are three bedrooms—mine is a funny little one built out at the back, down three steps, with two windows overlooking a corner of the square and our road past the hospital.
It is my fourth billet here in a week, and Gabrielle and I have made it quite habitable by collecting things from other parts of the house. We are back in our own rugs and blankets again without sheets, and there is no water on yet, but we filled our hot-water bottles at the hospital, and are quite warm and cosy, and locked up—I shall have to let Gabrielle in at 6.30 to-morrow morning. She is going to shop and cook for us, with help from the kind Marie at the Château, who is aghast at our present more military mode of living. The Château is now swarming with Staff Officers, to whom Marie pays far less attention than she does to us!
When the wind is in the right direction you can hear the rifle firing as well as the guns—and they are often shelling aeroplanes on a fine day. We have two bad cases in to-night—one wounded in the lung, and one medical transferred from downstairs, where the slight medicals are.
A Captain of the ——, hit in the back this morning when he was crossing in the open to visit a post in his trench, has a little freckled Jock for his servant, who dashed out to bring him in when he fell. "Most gallant, you know," he said. They adore each other. Jock stands to attention, salutes, and says "Yes'm" when I gave him an order. Their friends troop in to see them as soon as they hear they're hit. So many seem to have been wounded before—nearly all, in fact.
Letters are coming in very irregularly, I don't quite know why.
Saturday, April 10th, 10.30 p.m.—It is difficult to settle down to sleep to-night: the sky is lit up with flashes and star-shells, and every now and then a big bang shakes the house, above the almost continuous thud, thudding, and the barking of the machine-guns and the crackling of rifle firing; they are bringing in more to-day, both here and at the Hospice, and we are tired enough to go to sleep as if we were at home; I shouldn't wonder if the Night Sister had a busy night.
We had to rig up our day-room for an operation this evening—they have always taken them over to the Hospice, where they have a very swanky modern theatre.
We couldn't manage to get any food to-day for Gabrielle to cook for us, as our rations hadn't come up, so we went back to the café. She has been busy nettoying all day, and the house feels much cleaner.
The dead silence, darkness, and emptiness of the streets after 8 o'clock are very striking.